The relationship between student leaders’ constructive development, their leadership identity, and their understanding of leadership

Authors

• Valerie I. Sessa, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Jillian Ploskonka, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Elphys L. Alvarez, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Steven Dourdis, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Christopher Dixon, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Jennifer D. Bragger, Montclair State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-15-2016

Journal / Book Title

Journal of Leadership Education

Abstract

The purpose of our research was to use Day, Harrison, and Halpin’s, (2009) theory of leadership development as a premise to investigate how students’ constructive development is related to their leader identity development and understanding of leadership. Baxter Magolda’s Model of Epistemological Reflection (MER, 1988, 2001) was used to understand constructive development, Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen’s Leadership Identity Development (2005) to determine leader identity, and Drath’s principles of leadership (2001) to determine understanding of leadership. Fifty junior and senior college student leaders filled out the MER and participated in an interview about their leadership experiences. Interviews were coded according to the above constructs of leader identity development and leadership understanding. Although there was a relationship between leader identity development and understanding of leadership, no relationship was found between these two constructs and constructive development. Findings suggest that most of the student leaders still depend on others to help them construct reality. Furthermore, many believe that because they are in a leadership role, they are leaders while others are not.

DOI

10.12806/V15/I1/R2

MSU Digital Commons Citation

Sessa, Valerie I.; Ploskonka, Jillian; Alvarez, Elphys L.; Dourdis, Steven; Dixon, Christopher; and Bragger, Jennifer D., "The relationship between student leaders’ constructive development, their leadership identity, and their understanding of leadership" (2016). Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 725.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/psychology-facpubs/725

Rights

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Published Citation

Sessa VI, Ploskonka J, Alvarez EL, Dourdis S, Dixon C, Bragger JD (2016), "The relationship between student leaders’ constructive development, their leadership identity, and their understanding of leadership". Journal of Leadership Education, Vol. 15 No. 1 pp. 15–30, doi: https://doi.org/10.12806/V15/I1/R2